


Love is the Absence of Loneliness

by iplierfic



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Friendship, M/M, Romance, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 11:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14354682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iplierfic/pseuds/iplierfic
Summary: Darkiplier meets Antisepticeye for the first time.





	Love is the Absence of Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my dear readers! If you've read "Yanking the Monster from Its Lair," you'll have a better understanding of my interpretation of Darkiplier, but you can still enjoy this fic as a standalone. In brief: Darkiplier is *literally* Darkness personified. And Antisepticeye -- well, you'll just have to find out! Enjoy.

Sitting in a chair with its hands on its knees and its eyes on the open doorway, Darkness calls out, “I can see every light you care to hide yourself in.”

 

“Who said I was hiding?” the Intruder asks with a simpering smile, invisible to the naked eye but stark in the infrared.  “Maybe you’re just prying.”

 

Darkness’ fingers flex on the chair before consciously relaxing.  Cracking its neck, it states coolly, “This is my den.”

 

The Intruder saunters into the space, an amorphous shadow with a wicked smile.  “Is it, now?”  Making a show of approaching a wooden shelf, the Intruder pries a book from the top, pretending to dust it off.  “Whatcha readin’ these days?” it asks.  Darkness doesn’t answer.  With stunning speed, the Intruder flips through the book, snaps it in half, and tosses it on the floor.  “Come on,” it croons.  “I know you have something worthwhile here.”  Tearing books off the shelf with scouring, elongated claws, the Intruder insists, “You can’t hide from me, either.”

 

Assuming a bored demeanor, Darkness turns its gaze to its own hands, contemplatively assessing them.  Without warning, a pair of clawed hands snags Darkness’ own, cutting into the backs of them.  In a sweet, preening voice, the Intruder asks, “Feeling _shy_?”

 

Darkness snarls and rips its hands away; red and blue light spills across the space between them, a flash like lightning that passes very, very slowly.  The Intruder blinks, wide-eyed – inhumanly wide-eyed, _childishly_ wide-eyed – before it reaches for the light that vanishes before its claws make contact.  “Do that again,” it commands, humor gone.

 

Standing on higher ground, Darkness says derisively, “No.”

 

The Intruder sinks its claws into Darkness’ hands again, attempting to pry the light out of the monster, but Darkness grits its own teeth, refusing to be moved.  The red and blue lights glow at the edges of its shattered grey skin, strategically hidden to persuade the dull-eyed senses of humans that it is ordinary.  But the Intruder isn’t looking at the ordinary aspect: the Intruder is staring at the place where the skin breaks like it is a revelation.  “How are you doing that?” the Intruder asks, agitated and enormously curious.  One claw rakes across Darkness’ wrist, attempting to pry it out of the monster like the books on its shelf.

 

In response, Darkness pushes to its feet, rejecting the Intruder crowding into its space with a single titanic shove.  The Intruder stumbles and falls, evidently unaccustomed to being the second most powerful creature in a room.  If Darkness hoped to deter it with a show of strength, it is sorely disappointed: the Intruder regains its footing with a gleeful grin.  “Oh, you’re a feisty one,” it cackles, sidling closer but not directly towards Darkness, putting itself _just_ out of arm’s reach.

 

Unperturbed, Darkness moves towards the windows, gazing out at the darkening sky, awash in magisterial thought with its hands tucked behind its back, its suit neatly pressed and only slightly ruffled where the Intruder touched it.  As if called by name, the Intruder’s hands, burning hot, curl around Darkness’ wrists, trapping them behind it.  Pressing itself against Darkness’ back, the Intruder muses, “It’s been a while since I’ve killed a demon.”

 

Glancing in supplication towards the unresponsive heavens, Darkness replies shortly, “I’m not a demon.”

 

Barking a laugh, the Intruder says flatly, “If you’re here to tell me you’re an angel….”  It pauses with another half-laugh, evidently waiting to be rebuffed, but Darkness offers no commentary.  With a disgruntled sound, the Intruder asks, “What are you, then?”  When Darkness doesn’t respond, the Intruder presses it forward harshly, pinning it against the glass and saying in a low hiss, “I asked you a question.”

 

In a blur of red light, Darkness turns sharply to face the Intruder.  Despite the fluidity of the gesture, the Intruder’s claws still rake across the monster’s wrist, forearm, and abdomen.  The split skin spills blue light like blood, momentarily entrancing the Intruder’s attention.  Without waiting for the Intruder’s wits to return, Darkness’ hand lashes out and grasps the Intruder by the neck, driving it back several paces and throwing it so hard against the corner that the drywall cracks.  “I owe you _nothing_ ,” it thunders.

 

Eyes dancing with amusement, the Intruder reaches up with wondering eyes to cup Darkness’ face in both hands.  “You're so beautiful.  I want to break you,” it says without contempt, voice assuming the nonchalance of stating a widely-understood fact.  “All that light.  Why do you keep it bottled up?”

 

Snarling, the monster shifts so its forearm is against the Intruder’s throat, but the Intruder’s grip is iron on its face.  It cannot be removed.  “So beautiful,” it repeats wonderingly, and in the perpetual darkness of infrared, its smile seems especially nefarious, preternaturally huge.  “Where’d you come from?”

 

Feeling uncomfortably close, Darkness snaps, “Get off me.”

 

A laugh – a sincere, warm, bubbly laugh – bursts from the Intruder’s chest.  As if to emphasize the absurdity of the request given their positions – the Intruder against the wall with Darkness’ forearm against its throat, the picture of a pinned animal – the Intruder slots a leg between the monster’s and corrects sweetly, “I think you meant _get me off_.”

 

With a growl that seems almost subvocal, the monster shoves the Intruder against the wall again, eliciting another pained _crack_ from the drywall, before stalking back a few paces.  It feels cold, suddenly, without that intense, magmatic heat nearby.  It refuses to give in to the urge to return to it.  “Leave me,” it orders.  “Go kill your demons.  I’m not one of them.”

 

“No,” the Intruder agrees, sauntering forward, pressing the monster back without a single touch.  “You’re much, much more interesting.”  Cocking its head at the monster, it asks, “Give me five questions.”

 

“Why should I?” Darkness asks, strategically circling the room, refusing to be backed into a corner.

 

The Intruder huffs.  “Humor me?”

 

Darkness doesn’t deign the dismal reply with a response.  A sigh flusters from the Intruder’s shoulders before it slices forward at a speed so great it seems to disappear from reality for a moment before reappearing directly in front of the monster, radiating that profound heat.  It doesn’t touch the monster, but it doesn’t need to to paralyze the monster.  Darkness can’t move.  “Humor me,” it repeats, surprisingly soft.

 

Something – crumples, inside the monster.  It yearns abruptly for solitude, for its chair and its books and its peaceful hours, but it can have none of these things with the Intruder present.  So it stiffens its shoulders, cracks its neck, and looks right at the animal before it, looking hungry and excited.  It’s strange to see anyoneexcited to meet it.  _It_ – not the human façade, but the monster underneath the skin.

  
“What are you?” the Intruder asks.

 

“A monster,” the monster replies.

 

“Where are you from?”

 

“Somewhere indescribable.”

 

“Care to be more specific?”

 

“Care to waste another question?”

 

“Fair enough.”  Without missing a beat, the Intruder presses, “What’s your name?”

 

“I have no name,” the monster replies.  It’s a truth and a lie.

 

“What are you called, then?” the Intruder asks without resentment.

 

The monster levels an implacable look at it for a long time, sizing it up.  It rarely discloses any kind of name, aware of how … trivial, the closest thing to an identity sounds when placed into a neat little box and labeled _Darkness_.  Aloud, it murmurs, “No one speaks to me.  I speak to them.”

 

The Intruder gives a little huff of a laugh.  “All right.  Confucius.”  Frowning, it adds, “That’s not an answer.”

 

“I never promised to give answers.”

 

“Come on.  Give me something.”  Grinning wickedly, the Intruder adds, “I’ll make something up.  Something horrible.”

 

Flatly, the monster replies, “Really?”

 

“Like … Butterscotch.  Or Kipper.  Or Sweetums.”

 

In the quietest voice it possesses, the monster announces, “…Darkness.”

 

The Intruder cups a hand theatrically around its elfishly arched ear, delighted and surprised.  “What was that?  I don’t think your neighbors heard you.”

 

“ _Darkness_ ,” the monster growls, “and I don’t have neighbors.”

 

“Darkness,” the Intruder repeats, ignoring the latter comment – it had to have known; the monster’s home is far removed from any urban dwellings, deep in the countryside – and it seems to be reigning in the urge to laugh mightily, its expression completely flat but its voice strained.  “You’re serious – I can see it in your eyes – but – _really_?  Darkness?  That’s like, teen angst, _My Immortal_ levels of cheesiness.”  Giggling, it finishes, “I mean, you might as well be called Butterscotch Kipper McSweetums.”

 

“Call me whatever the fuck you want,” the monster snaps, unusually crude, any of its many human hosts’ personalities creeping into its tone.  “Get the fuck out of my house.”

 

“Oh, hey.”  In a comforting croon, the Intruder slinks forward until there is almost no space between them and says, “It’s a beautiful name.”

 

At wit’s end, the monster stalks away, but the Intruder pursues it, matching its pace exactly.  “Come on, Kipper, don’t be like this.”

 

“Don’t fucking call me that,” the monster snarls, back to the Intruder, determined now to ignore it entirely.  It walks right into the Intruder when the Intruder materializes exactly in front of it, the Intruder’s spindly arms wrapping around it.  “Get.  Off.  Me.”

 

“Darky,” the Intruder says in a light, crooning tone, like one would a _child_ , and every hair on the back of Darkness’ neck _bristles_ , “it’s fine.  Really.  I don’t mind that you have a ridiculous name.”

 

“Shut up.”  It’s short, blunt, like a knife to the gut, a final warning to _let go_.

 

The Intruder misses or ignores the memo, saying simply, “I like it.”

 

Growling deeply, straining to break free of the inescapably powerful grip – doubly certain that it does _not_ want the Intruder in its life; how can any other creature be strong enough to contain it? – it snarls, “I don’t _care_ whether you like it—”

 

“But you _do_ ,” the Intruder insists, in its infernally sweet tone, and releases an arm.  Its hand reaches for Darkness’ face, and before it can escape, it taps the monster’s nose with its index finger.  “You want me to like it.  That’s why you’re upset.”

 

“I don’t get upset.”

 

The Intruder looks it up, and down, and up again, raising its eyebrows.  All at once, it pops into the visible spectrum, startling the monster back half a pace.  The Intruder chases it, keeping its grip.  “I’m sorry,” it says, with a strange amount of sincerity that makes an even stranger emotion well up in Darkness’ throat.  It’s almost sadness.  It’s almost joy.  It steps back, and the Intruder – suddenly flesh and blood and almost painfully real – lets it go.

 

It wants to reject the apology, to sneer at it, to make the Intruder feel half as … _stupid_ as it feels in that moment.  But the Intruder is looking at it with sincere eyes, _human_ eyes, and it strikes the monster how human it must appear in return, to the being that flirts casually with other spectrums of light.  “I don’t care,” it says hollowly.

 

“You do,” the Intruder says.  Extending a hand – a human hand, but still radiating that extra heat – the Intruder introduces, “My name’s Anti.”

 

The monster does not take its hands.  “Anti,” it repeats coldly, trying to somehow make it sound haughty and wounding.  “What are you?”

 

“What are you?” Anti retorts lightly.

 

“A monster,” Darkness repeats mechanically.

 

“Well, yeah,” Anti says, and smiles, and there are a few too many teeth in it, sharp, predatory teeth.  “But what _kind_ o’ monster?  Do you eat goats?”

 

Affronted, Darkness asks, “What?”

 

“You know – El Chupacabra.  No?  What about vampires?”  Beaming, it adds, “Of course, you’re a _vampire_.  That explains that—”

 

Shortly, the monster cuts off, “I’m not a vampire.”

 

“I’m a virus,” the Intruder – Anti, the monster supposes, its name is Anti – confides cheerfully.  “A computer virus, actually, from the future.  The world was a bit too empty, where I came from.”  The Intruder – Anti – takes a seat on the arm of Darkness’ favorite chair, narrating casually.  Darkness stands, and stares, and swallows back the snarl that arises, too intrigued by its words to chase Anti from its perch.  “So I came here.  I wanted to have some fun, see.  Turns out, the grid that my world depends on doesn’t even _exist_ here.”  Making an obscene gesture towards its crotch, Anti says, “Okay, I showed you mine.”  It looks at Darkness expectantly.

 

The monster stares uncomprehendingly.  With patient slowness, the virus explains, “You’re supposed to show me yours.”

 

Frowning but feeling determined to hold its ground with the virus, the monster reaches for its belt and unbuckles it.  Interest flashes in the virus’ eyes.  Its silence goads the monster into persisting until, abruptly, its legs are bared.  The virus sits rigidly, attentively, before saying dryly, “Here I thought it’d be more of a challenge to get into your pants.  Do you just fuck everything that walks in your door?”

 

Deeply annoyed, the monster snaps, “You _said_ —”

 

“I _meant_ tell me what kind of monster _you are_ ,” the virus corrects with profound, exasperated amusement.  But its eyes glow faintly green, and the monster can see a hint of a red flush on its cheeks, _hunger_ mixed in with fondness.  “Not _take off your pants_ , I don’t really care what’s underneath them.”

 

Ice burns in the monster’s cheeks, and it knows the grey tinge is prominent, inhuman, but standing there with its pants undone and the virus’ amusement on it is almost too much for it to bear.  It cannot even decide if it is worse to continue or to fall back in shame.  As though taking pity on the monster’s indecision, the virus snaps out of existence and reappears right in front of it, kneeling.

 

There’s something powerful about the way it looks up at the monster, something arresting about the way painfully curved claws hook gently into its belt and tug its pants back into place, its gaze never leaving or blinking.  It replaces the pants without saying a word, and when it stands again the monster is struck by how evenly their eyes meet.  Perhaps this body isn’t so terrible after all, it thinks, the shame of always standing _beneath_ others alleviated for a moment.

 

Anti keeps its hands on the monster’s hips for a moment longer before retracting them.  The claw marks are still impressed on the monster’s skin, but it doesn’t flinch.  It feels no pain.  It can’t – there is no connection between its body and whatever passes for a mind, a sense of consciousness, a forceful grounding in a reality that rejects ephemeral beings.  _I am no one.  I am nothing._   Slowly, Anti says, “You don’t know what you are, do you?”

 

Mechanically, Darkness repeats, “A monster.”

 

“That’s what they’ve told you, isn’t it?”  There’s steel in the virus’ voice, its hands settling on the monster’s shoulders.  The monster doesn’t brush them away.  Its gaze falls to one, and it sees darkness at the edge of the claws.  “The humans.  That you’re bad, that you’re not real?  You don’t have feelings, so your existence is theirs to decide?”  This is an argument that the virus has had ten thousand times with itself, the monster senses; its tone is that practiced.  “Why are _feelings_ the only thing that matters?  Lightning doesn’t have feelings.  Space doesn’t have feelings.  The only things that have _feelings_ are animals, animals that make and break toys when they stop _feeling_ fondness for them.”

 

Hungry, Darkness can’t stop itself from asking, “Space?”

 

It knows lightning – remembers, from a manor, half a lifetime ago, _lightning means murder_ , but ….

 

Anti blinks, and its eyes are all black, now.  It’s not frightening.  It’s honest; and the honesty is comforting to the monster.  “You know,” it says, struggling for words for the first time.  “That … big emptiness full of stars?  Space?”  Taking the monster’s sleeve, it drags the monster towards the window once more, and points towards the sky.  “That’s space.”

 

Regarding it for a few long moments – hardly any stars visible, it seems; just blackness as far as the eye can see – the monster says, “I didn’t know it had a name.”

 

“You’re like a child,” the virus – Anti – muses.  Affront brings a response to the monster’s lips, but the virus continues before it can speak.  “Never listen to humans.”  Rubbing the skin on the monster’s wrist lightly, it adds heatedly, “They just want to be rid of the creations they can’t put in their toybox.”

 

“I’m not a toy.”

 

“No,” Anti agrees, and it leans against the monster heavily, and the monster braces its weight without moving at all, steady as a rock.  “You’re not.”

 

They stare out the window together, into the Darkness that calls the monster of the same name relentlessly, as though it can be reunited with the thing that is not a thing, the _absence_ of light, and why it draws such peace from the virus’ presence eludes it.  Aloud, the virus asks, “Why do you hide the lights?”

 

The monster considers shrugging the question off, literally and metaphorically.  Fatigue nests in its bones.  It’s exhausting to be in the virus’ presence, vying for a sense of control.  It wants to relax.  It wants to settle.  But it can’t – not with the virus so near, so dangerously close to it.  “They remind me of the lies,” the monster says at last.

 

“What lies?”

 

Anti gives no ground, and the monster can’t bring itself to move.  “That I was ever human,” the monster replies softly.  The virus doesn’t speak, waiting.  The monster can’t say what it is that finally draws its voice to the forefront, but the silence beckons it. 

 

And so, in a slow, methodical manner, it tells the virus everything – from the first moment of consciousness to the final instant it left that damned manor.  “I don’t know _where_ ‘I’ came from,” it admits, and even with Anti’s head on one of its shoulders it feels as though a weight has been lifted from them.  “I don’t … I don’t think of myself as a _self_.”

 

Anti waits for it to go on, but the monster cannot.  Instead of speaking, the virus holds the silence until it has become permanent between them, something to bask in rather than break.  It turns its head until its nose is pressed against Darkness’ shoulder, a broad, cool, human shoulder with edges of blue and red light flickering near it, and stays there for a time, too, until rain flickers against the windows, and the monster suddenly, sharply turns away from them, breaking contact.

 

Agitated, it orders in a low voice, “Get out.”  If it can reclaim the _façade_ of control, then it might have a peaceful evening, yet.  Keeping the virus around – _Anti, its name is Anti;_ but the monster doesn’t want to give it a name, because regardless of how ludicrous its own might sound, names have _weight_ , meaning – is dangerous.  In more ways than one, the monster knows, aware of that unpent power still resisting it at every turn.  The virus wonders why the monster hides the light; and silently, the monster replies, _Because you could extinguish it, and then where would I be?_

 

Somehow, Darkness cannot exist without light, and there is poetry and tragedy in the thought, that it must carry in its broken shell the antithesis of its being, that it must _hope_ that keeping it together will keep its own sanity intact.  It suspects the day it loses the light is the day it loses any sense of coherence.  There was a time when it might have welcomed decoherence, would have welcomed vanishing into the ether, but it has been too long since it knew that non-existence, and it has become too human in the interim.  It craves coherency, consistency, a sense of self.  It likes its own sanity too much to surrender it readily, and it hates that it _wants_ to stay grounded.

 

There was a time when it would have begged it to be nothing more than the shadows in the mirrors, the pitch to a storm, to reclaim corner of existence that the light had not yet found.  Now?  Now it looks at Anti, and it sees _itself_ reflected in those brilliant green eyes, a flicker of red and blue at the edges of its own vision.  It senses the hunger in Anti’s demeanor – a hunger like curiosity, like _murder_ , as if to enjoy something Anti must consume it, and it understands completely why they call it a _virus_ – but the monster doesn’t feel threatened.

 

It's a  _challenge_.

 

The virus steps towards it, but it doesn't glitch out.  _Glitch_ describes the way it moves, but virus is in those eyes, virus is in that _heat_ aching to consume everything that Darkness is not.  Almost defensively, the monster lets the red and blue light show in its sharp edges, in the cracked edges where its human demeanor falls apart, a line slanting across the arch of its left shoulder, hinging along the inner cusp of its jaw, lancing in varying, intricate patterns from heel to crown until it seems to glow around the edges.  When it flashes its teeth in a snarl, the lights slant from one incisor to the opposite, one red, the other deep blue.

 

Anti reaches out, grabbing its shirt, and Darkness has the presence to know what is happening a second before it happens, and it doesn’t avert its head or tilt its face to the right to avoid the kiss that Anti yanks it into.  It’s a kiss by convention, but the way Anti grips the back of its head, sinks incisors like fangs into its lower lip, a satisfied snarl deep in its chest – it’s a kiss by convention, but it doesn't belong in a box labelled  _love_.

 

It’s hunger, pure, raw hunger, and there’s something attractive about the fact that Anti wants _it_ , the monster, rather than the pretty idea, the pretty façade.  Pushing it back, the monster glares at the virus, and there’s a drop of the monster’s blue light on the virus’ fang.  Reaching up casually to grab the collar of the monster’s suit, the virus simpers, “Oh, I’m _keeping_ you.”

 

Baring its teeth again, an act more familiar than a smile, the monster growls, “You wouldn’t be the first to try.”

 

“But the first to succeed?” Anti teases, straightening out the monster’s collar and smiling that wicked smile.  “I love being the first.  It’s easy in this time.  It’s almost unfair.”  Yanking Darkness closer, close enough to breathe on its lips, Anti murmurs, “You’re the first challenge.”

 

As if to prove it, Darkness plants its hands firmly on Anti’s chest and doesn’t think, just _projects_ , throwing its weight forward, and Anti crumples to a knee, head lowered, fist clenched.  Kneeling across from it, cool and calculating, Darkness says, “If you want a challenge, then I’ll give you a challenge.”  Another, harder push has Anti sprawled on the floor, and Darkness straightens to its full height, smoothing its hands down its suit.

 

With blacked-out eyes and a big grin, Anti doesn’t look repentant.  “Whatever you say, Dark.”  Then, holding out a hand, it looks expectantly, unblinkingly at the monster, until the monster extends a hand and clasps it by the wrist, hauling the virus upright.  “Dark suits you,” it adds, conversation uninterrupted as it reaches up to Darkness’ undone collar, hooking a clawed finger in the fabric.  “As a nickname.  ‘Darkness’ is wordy.”

 

The monster says flatly, “Ant suits you.  As a nickname.”

 

Laughing – a warbled, interrupted sound – the virus says, “Oh, Anti’s already a nickname.”

 

Darkness – _Dark, your name is Dark_ – frowns.  “For what?”

 

“Antidisestablishmentarianism,” Anti says without batting an eyelash.

 

A flicker of humor twitches Dark’s lips.  Regarding Anti for a long moment, it waits for the virus, the _glitch_ to break, but it just keeps standing there cheekily.  At last, Dark says slowly, “You’re not lying.”

 

“My first name was 918RB605,” Anti says colorlessly.  “I prefer ‘Antidisestablishmentarianism’ to that noise.  Fuck humans.”  Pointing a thumb over its shoulder towards the window, it adds conspiratorially, “I saw your heat signature from _twelve miles_ away.  You’re like a black hole.”  Amused, it says, “Don’t you know the trouble you’ll attract?  I’m surprised you _haven’t_ met a demon yet.”  Then, making a slightly inconclusive sound, the glitch explains, “They’re not really _demons_.  They’re rogues, like me.”  Preening, it extends both hands outward, exposing its chest to attack.  “We broke off the grid and they never got us back.  I’m one of the good ones.”

 

“I find that hard to believe,” Dark says coolly.

 

“Yeah, when they gouge out your eyes, you’ll see what I mean,” Anti says, suddenly flat, and the black eyes go white for a moment.  “These aren’t real.  None of this is … _real_ , I guess.”  Gesticulating at itself, the virus says, “I’m not a _person_.”  Making a disgusted sound, it reaches up with sudden verve, grabbing Dark’s collar again and yanking it close, making the monster stumble a little.  To counterbalance the motion, it plants its hands on Anti’s hips, and the intimacy of the hold suddenly becomes apparent as Anti slides its arms around Dark’s neck.  “But I picked up a few lessons.  How to make them scream.”  Seductively, speaking right into Dark’s left ear, Anti purrs, “How to make them _bleed_.”

 

Dark remembers blood on its hands, a lot of blood, blood _everywhere_ , and feels disgust curl in its stomach.  “I want no part in it,” it says in a low voice.

 

“Don’t you want to hear them beg _you_ for mercy?” Anti asks, still holding the monster too close to escape.  It doesn’t stop Dark from pulling back.  Anti’s claws sink in to stabilize its hold.  There is no pain; only a vague awareness that it _should_ hurt, the way they carve rivulets in flesh for the red and blue light to sink into.  “Don’t you want to know what it’s like when _they’re_ not the center of the universe?”

 

“They aren’t,” Dark says, and thinks of all the deaths, all the years that have passed, and still how every human _crumbles_.  “They’re weak.”

 

“They don’t _know_ that.”  Anti pulls back to look into Dark’s eyes, insisting, “They think they’re invincible.  We can _teach_ them.  Humble them, before they build demons.”

 

Heedless of how deeply Anti’s claws dig into its shoulders to restrain it, Dark steps out of its grip, heat sinking into the back of its shoulders where the wounds are.  Anti pounces, and in a glitched movement they’re against the wall again, and Anti demands in a fierce whisper, “ _Don’t you want to be free?_   You’ll never be free if there are humans to hunt you down, and they _will_ hunt you down.”

 

“Let them try."

 

Anti looks at the monster silently, assessing, before releasing it and reaching up with clawed hands to dig all ten points into the soft flesh just beneath Dark’s eyes.  “Do you really want to play that game?” it asks, digging the points in just enough to make the red and blue light tangle as they attempt to preserve the faltering host body.  “Alone?  I found you in hours, Dark.”

 

Releasing the monster, Anti beholds the little marks that it has created under Dark’s eyes and smiles to itself.  “Looks like you’re wearing makeup,” it muses, reaching up to smudge a thumb affectionately over the dark, falsely colored bruises.  Dark doesn’t move.  It can’t; the motion is almost hypnotic, coupled with Anti’s unflinching, unblinking gaze.  “It’s pretty.”

 

A flicker of a snarl that settles before it truly forms, just the faintest curling of the monster’s lip that has Anti lifting its eyebrows.  “It’s _handsome?_ ” the virus corrects, sounding faintly amused.  “I didn’t want to assume anything.”

 

Dark looks into Anti’s eyes, the false eyes full of real emotion, and doesn’t know what to say.  It’s hard to verbalize.  “I don’t … know … the difference,” it says at last.  “If there is one,” it adds, almost heatedly, because it hates not _knowing_ and there is an entire universe full of things Darkness doesn’t _know_.

 

Anti smiles, curving its hands around Dark’s face, framing it.  “I was made my humans,” it confesses, “and so I share some of their … predilections.”

 

Darkness refuses to reveal its own ignorance, despite Anti’s unrelenting hold and the clear implication that they can stand there for a _long_ time, or Dark can swallows its pride and _ask_.  Pride is for humans.  Cooling, Dark asks, “What kind of predilections?”

 

Rewarding Dark’s responsiveness, Anti releases its face and steps back, performing a full pirouette for no other reason than it _can_.  Where Dark prefers stillness, Anti seems restless.  “There’s this thing called _gender_ , which is … I guess it’s like color?  Apparently there are different kinds, and people have a favorite, and that’s their color.  ‘Pretty’ falls under the masculine gender and ‘handsome’ the feminine gender, where I come from.”  Smiling wryly, it adds, “Of course, these switched sometime in the past … millennia,” Anti finishes evasively.

 

Curiosity finally stokes the embers of Dark’s desire to hold a conversation, even as night settles over the small room, throwing familiar shadows over the scarce furniture and the two glowering inhabitants.  The shadows are comforting.  The shadows are frightening.  With Anti present, the shadows seem outright conspiratorial, as though they are planning on attacking Dark for its mutiny, for daring to rise against its anonymity.

 

“Masculine?” it tries, searching for a starting point.

 

Anti nods and takes a seat in Dark’s favorite chair, carelessly arranging itself so one leg is jaunted over the side.  “Uh huh.  The, uh.”  Frowning, Anti finally reaches up a hand and strokes its chin.  “The whiskery humans.  The ones that get more hair on the face, usually.  But shorter on the head.  Feminine is the other way, but sometimes it’s not.  Um.  Oh!  Masculine is …”  Inflicting a sudden, frightening growl, Anti finishes, “ _Deep._ ”

 

“Deep,” Darkness repeats, and its voice seems … almost whimsical, but hardly _deep_ , in the same growling, earthy way.  “And feminine?”

 

“No whiskers,” Anti says, seeming very pleased with itself as it brushes a thumb across its own bare cheekbones.

 

Scratching its own slightly scruffy face lightly, Dark can’t help but point out, “So this is … masculine … and feminine?”

 

Anti shrugs.  “Don’t ask me about fucking humans,” it says, but there’s little annoyance in its tone.  It’s mostly amused.  It’s always amused, Dark realizes, even when it snaps its fingers and says, “You just gonna stand there and sulk?”

 

At a loss – Dark’s favorite chair is its favorite for a reason: it is the _only_ chair in the room, and the adjacent bedroom only has a bed, ill-suited for guests – Dark says, “There’s nowhere else to sit.”

 

Sweetly, Anti taps the floor with a foot.  Dark glowers.  Laughing, Anti says, “What?  It’s your floor.  I’m sure it’s spotless.”

 

“You barely know me.  How could you know that?”

 

“Because I have two fake eyes that can see right through you,” Anti says without humor.  Then, patting its knee, it adds, “Come here.”

 

Dark doesn’t move.  Anti glitches, and then they’re somehow on the chair together.  Dark is sitting almost identical to its former perch, and Anti has taken up residence at a perpendicular, sprawled across its lap and the arms of the chair.  “See?  We _can_ share,” it says dryly.

 

With nowhere useful to put its hands, Dark settles them on Anti’s abdomen.  It’s very warm, especially compared to its own cool chest, cool fingers.  Anti grasps them, holding them, warming them.  “You’re so cold,” it muses.

 

“I don’t feel it,” Dark says, and it’s only partly a lie.  It _feels_ the cold, but there’s a disconnect between doing something about it and experiencing the sensation.  It is not unlike dreaming: aware of a sensation, but not entirely sure that it is real, even in the moment, lacking some crucial other dimension.  “Why are you sitting on me?”

 

Anti reaches up and pinches its nose.  “Because you only have one chair.”  Releasing it, Anti cuddles up against the monster, surprisingly cozy, and adds lightly, “And you’re comfier than the floor.”

 

“Am I.”  Dark says it flatly, intending to dissuade Anti’s affections, but the virus purrs an affirmative, and that’s that.

 

Sighing, Dark thinks about a thousand questions – namely, whether it qualifies as masculine or feminine for having a mostly but not absolutely deep voice, a mostly but not absolutely whiskery face.  Then it remembers that human monikers fall deeply short of its own experience – even the seemingly universal experiences of _love_ and _hate_ only puzzle and perturb the monster – and so it quietly files them away, never to be reexamined.

 

_I am neither._

 

And that’s that.

 

There’s a light rain outside, building gradually as Anti’s breathing evens out.  It doesn’t sleep, and neither does Dark, but they share heat, until Dark feels as warm as the glitch, and the blue and red light illuminates the space.  “There you are,” Anti murmurs, a long time later, as red and blue light speckles the ceiling like stars.  _Space_.  “Beautiful monster.”

 

Dark considers asking whether _beautiful_ is masculine or feminine, whether _monster_ is masculine or feminine, but the curiosity dies as it stares at the artificial darkness above them, at the flicker of red and blue lights, at the wondrous mixture of the two things.  There is something beautiful about it, even though it is not real.

 

“I’ve been looking for you for so long,” Anti sighs, and it’s genuinely wistful, almost human in its longing.  Dark cannot reply.  There are no words.  “I didn’t even know I was looking for you, but I was _looking_ for you.”

 

There is something nonsensical about the statement, but its message reads plainly to Dark.

 

 _I needed to find you_.

 

And instead of kicking Anti out of its small house and pretending that demons and glitches and realities even stranger than its own exist, Dark merely holds onto the warmth of a creature that cares for it, and stargazes.


End file.
